Cap-Haïtien tide times

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived.

Model-derived from a global ocean grid. Useful indication; expect about ±45 minutes on average vs. a local harmonic gauge, individual stations vary widely. See /methodology for per-region detail. Not for navigation.

Conditions as of 00:00 local time. Refreshes daily.

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived. · Not for navigation.

The angler tradition for major/minor fishing windows: major ≈3-hour windows around moon transit and opposition; minor ≈2-hour windows around moonrise and moonset. Times are America/Port-au-Prince local. Folk tradition, not a scientific forecast.

Last spring tide on Mon 18 May (range 0.8m). Next neap on Fri 22 May.

Spring tides cluster around new and full moons (biggest swings). Neap tides land on quarter moons (smallest swings). See the spring tide and neap tide glossary entries for the why.

Cap-Haïtien is Haiti's second city, positioned on a bay of the Windward Passage on the northern coast, approximately 270 kilometres north of Port-au-Prince by road. In the 18th century it was the wealthiest city in the French colonial Caribbean — Cap-Français, as it was then known, exported sugar and coffee from the richest plantation economy in the New World and was called the Paris of the Antilles by travelers who admired its stone buildings, theatres, and formal gardens. That prosperity rested entirely on slave labor; the city's legacy is inseparable from the 1791 revolution that began 20 kilometres to the south on the Bois Caïman plantation and culminated in Haitian independence on 1 January 1804. The tidal regime in Cap-Haïtien Bay is mixed semidiurnal and microtidal — spring range approximately 0.3 to 0.5 metres. The bay is partially sheltered by the headlands flanking it and by offshore shoals; wave energy inside the bay is generally low except during the passage of cold fronts from the north (nortes) in November through March, which generate northerly swell that enters the bay directly. The waterfront of Cap-Haïtien faces north across the bay. The harbour receives container ships, fuel barges, and ferry traffic; commercial and informal fishing boats work the bay in the early morning. The coral reef system of the northern coast begins a few kilometres west of the city at Labadie and extends east along the coast; the reef near Cap-Haïtien itself is largely degraded close to the city by anchor damage and sediment. The primary reason visitors come to Cap-Haïtien from outside Haiti is the UNESCO World Heritage National History Park, accessible from the city in 1.5 to 2 hours. The Citadelle Laferrière at 970 metres elevation is the largest fortress in the Caribbean — Henri Christophe's extraordinary construction of the early 19th century, a mountaintop fortress designed to resist French reconquest. The walls are 4 metres thick in places; the cannons from the Haitian revolution are still in position. The approach from Milot village involves a horseback or on-foot climb of approximately 8 kilometres gaining 600 metres of elevation; the jeep road from Cap-Haïtien to Milot takes 45 minutes. The Sans-Souci Palace ruins below the Citadelle are the remnants of Henri Christophe's royal palace, built in a European neoclassical style in the mountains of northern Haiti in 1813 — a statement of Haitian sovereignty and civilizational achievement to the post-independence world. The palace was damaged by earthquake in 1842 and never rebuilt. Together, the Citadelle and Sans-Souci constitute one of the most historically significant sites in the Caribbean and among the most dramatically located monuments in the world. Predictions on this page come from Open-Meteo Marine, a gridded global ocean model. Accuracy is typically within plus or minus 45 minutes on timing and 0.2 to 0.3 metres on height — model-derived, not from a local gauge. The Hydrographie Nationale d'Haïti is the national maritime authority; NOAA's tide gauge at San Juan, Puerto Rico, serves as the regional reference for the Windward Passage.